The care and feeding of your 952-2

For awhile it looked like the 952 was going to be the next great Bullseye pistol then between the price tag and specialty market sorta tanking all of a sudden S&W wasn't making them anymore. And second market suppliers of grips and such also went away. But if you have one you still want all the bells and whistles. The grips were the first thing I wanted to change. I tried modifying model 52 grips and ended up with a set of Pachmyers that worked nice by just making the holes a little oblong and oversized. That worked so I ordered a very lg set of Herretts that I was also able to re-drill and fit the pistol and my hand. It still wasn't what I wanted however so I kept looking. It turns out that the holes in a 952 grip match the holes in all 1911 grips (not 52's however) So what I finally ended up with was Herrett Nationals for a 1911 with an extra set of holes that cover easy with grip tape. 
  Then came the problem of mounting a dot on it. BME makes a mount for the 952, 952-2 short barrel and 952-2 long barrel. They really are different bases. The long barrel 952-2 uses Wilson Combat rear sights and the sight holds down a pair of springs. Back and forth with the fine gentleman that owns BME and finally got one that fits the frame and has a cut out for easier extraction and less stove pipes (that was my idea by the way). After all that the base does not really work all that well. There is only one screw in the back and a pressure screw forward. The flat smooth surface of the 952-2 doesn't really work good to tighten a screw onto and stop it from moving back and forth. To stop the movement first I tried drilling a small detent into the frame and aligning with the pressure screw. There was still some movement and sights would drift. So fine. It was perfectly flat so I drilled and tapped the top of slide to take a Marlin 336 flat base from their octogon barrel. I had to mount it forward of the rear sight to keep the sight on and springs contained. That worked for about 5 years perfectly but now I want to put an Aimpoint on the pistol. No problem. I put it on and I have too much forward weight. I decided to re-visit the BME mount. I already have a tapped hole to the rear and a indent forward. I just finished drilling the indent and tapped it. Now if I put the BME mount back on I have 3 solid bolt points. Except the BME mount never did fit flat on the slide. A .063" shim on the back hole and .092" on the front hole and I am in business. I used green Loctite and now I get to see if I can make it work with a 7000sc on a 9mm. Wish me luck.  Good news. They still make magazines for them

Big Herretts


Last 5 years or so..


With 7000sc and BME mount.

The 952 is such a beautiful pistol, I cannot bear the thought of taking a drill to it.  Fortunately for me, the factory grips are perfect for my hand.  Unfortunately for me, I would like to put a H-1 dot on it....

BME makes a lot of mounts for the 952, 952-1 and 952-2. If you have the one with a Wilson recoil bar (952-2 long barrel) you only have two choices and they are not for the H-1. If you have any of the other models then there is a mount just for the Aimpoint and clones.
http://bme-mounts.com/productlist.html

I made it to a place I could test the function of the 952-2 with the 7000sc on it this afternoon. The rounds I currently use in BE all functioned (slide locked back) but I probably won't be using a couple of them in cold weather.

1. 115gr L-SWC (Penn) 5.6 gr Unique. Ejected casings piled up straight under the pistol.

2.  147 RNBT  (Hornady) 5.1gr PP Ejected casings hit ground 12-18" from pistol.

3.  115gr HAP (Hornady) 6.4 gr PP Ejected casings hit ground 24-36" from pistol

The 115gr sandbag pretty good. One flyer but rest were in x ring size group.

A little more info on the 952. I had to tweek it a bit to function 100% without stove piping. It turns out that the model 52 springs will fit the 952. They are the same diameter but a little longer since the coil size is larger (stronger on the 952). By cutting a 52 (9lb) to the same length as the long 952 spring I got a spring about 1/2 lb less then the 952 short spring. The pistol comes with two springs. It was a good fit. Longer spring has less tension right at first but almost matches original when collapsed. That little change made all the difference needed. I took 7.5 coils off the 52 spring.

Len